Turns out it was a good thing to be cut off in the Wilderness, cut off from cellphone use, except for a brief section when we had cell phone contact and Jenn did some quick phone calls while I looked at some amazing rock formations called “Golden Gate” and it was stunning.1 So while in the park, I got to look for a while instead of furiously twitter.
I read some history on Fort Yellowstone which was established by the army to protect the park and may in fact have been the first environmentalists. Apparently, the national forest service adopted what the army had done and continued it’s policies. It’s interesting to see how aggressive Yellowstone Park is becoming a biosphere where the more we visit, the more people who come each year, the less you can actually touch and feel but just look. It feels like being outside an enormous Plexiglas clear dome.
Anyway I have my own personal theory about the name which I think it is from the sulfuric yellow rocks formed from he geysers but nobody mentions the rotten egg smell accompanying the sights and sounds.
Anyway, tomorrow we will go see “Old Faithful” and head to the Grand Tetons which I think is what I’m really going to enjoy seeing THIS
note. From my twitters it should have been obvious that neither of us knew what to expect so we stopped at every gas and food center and loaded up with so much food that we would be self-sufficient for at least three days if we were to be stranded, but Yellowstone seemed to have gasstations and “General Stores” every 20 miles within the park itself which was both a disappointment and a relief to me.
- Funny thing, just moments before I had been complaining that I wasn’t seeing any of that Ansel Adams sh*t and BAM, one minute later I almost lost control of the car as I gaped at sheer cliffs on either side of us. [↩]